Lay A Way

Welcome to my first coop. I wanted to try and save money so I decided to use what I already had, so I used the corner of my yard and the fence. I live here in McKinney, Texas just outside of Dallas. Almost every home here has some sort of a slope in the yard for drainage so I wanted the coop to be off the ground so my babies wouldn't get wet. I also didn't want my back yard looking like a farm so I tried to make the colors as similar to my house as I could. That was the easy part...the hard part was trying to make a coop functional while only being able to acess the one side. This was a challenge because we all know that you have to clean the coop from time to time and not being able to get into it would make this a daunting task.

The roof actually lifts up and can attach to the fence so I can clean the ladder and roost that are inside. The nesting box obviousley lifts up and has three nesting boxes. Below the nesting boxes there is another door that I can open to slide out a piece of plywood that sits on the floor of the coop. The plywood has laminate flooring on it so I can clean it with ease. This slides all the way back to the fence and is only really in there so I can make clean up faster. The run has a clear corragated roof to protect them from the rain and it also lifts up all the way and will attach to the fence so I can climb in for cleaning or to fix anything that I need to. The run also has a door attached to the far end so my babies can come and go as the please.

When I was painting the coop I wanted it to look my home as much as possible and definatly didn't want to have a plywood box in the backyard. So I made a block that was the same size as the brick on my house and used it as a stencil on the plywood. I started off by spraying the wood with wall texture to give it the look of brick. Then I sprayed it all gray (mortor) and then placed my stencil on and taped everything off. I sprayed my final color and took the tape off and I was done. It looks amazing even up close. I also decided not to cut the window out just yet since winter is comming and I want my chicks to stay warm. So I did basically the same thing for the window on the side. It is faux but it will be an actuall window come next spring.

The actual dimensions are 13' x4' and the coop is around 6' high

Some additions that I have done since taking the pictures are:
-wrapping the sides with hardware cloth instead of chicken wire
- wrapping the bottom of the coop with harware cloth
I did this cause I had an opposum or racoon get one of my chhicks the second night in their new home. Since I made the changes I haven't had a problem again with preadators.